World Building: S&W + Dinosaurs

[jdrakeh]

So, for the first time in many years, I'm working on a setting for a homebrew Swords & Wizardry campaign.

The basic premise is that your typical pseudo-European fantasy society has established a colony on a far off continent that is populated primarily by dinosaurs and that is home to ruins of an ancient, magically advanced, society (so lots of artifacts, lost cities, etc).

I'm leaning heavily toward having the colonists be cut off from their home country by some kind of magic storm, though that's subject to change (I'm open to suggestions for isolating the colonists, magical or otherwise). Additionally, suggestions for books that I should look at are welcome.

I honestly haven't thought ahead much further than that. I'm letting it percolate for the moment.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm leaning heavily toward having the colonists be cut off from their home country by some kind of magic storm, though that's subject to change (I'm open to suggestions for isolating the colonists, magical or otherwise). Additionally, suggestions for books that I should look at are welcome.

The colonists were connected to their home country via a portal to another world. The closing of the portal cut the colonists off.

Or the colonists aren't cut-off at all, but their homeland has been so thoroughly devastated by a magical cataclysm, war, or a legally-distinct tarrasque that there is no desire to return home.

 

[jdrakeh]

Or the colonists aren't cut-off at all, but their homeland has been so thoroughly devastated by a magical cataclysm, war, or a legally-distinct tarrasque that there is no desire to return home.

Oh. Oh. Ooooooh. That's a very good idea!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One of the last times I homebrewed a campaign with a “lost” civilization, I used a conceit that the ancients in question had left no known artifacts or architecture that depicted themselves, and their writings were not exactly clear either. There was a race of primitives- I used a D20 version of Seshayans- that had legends about the ancients, but even they were uncertain about what they looked like.

Turns out, the ancient civilization was Seshayan, but a cataclysmic war had caused a collapse (cribbed loosely from the legends of the fall of Atlantis).

I suggested an entirely different take on a setting like this a decade or so ago to another ENWorlder. The natives of the new lands had a society similar to Plains Indian culture post the introduction of the horse by Europeans. Except in this setting, horses were replaced by domesticated dino raptors or large flightless predatory birds like moas.

 

[jdrakeh]

I'm trying to steer clear of using primitive humanoids of any sort, actually. It's been done to death and it's not particularly looked upon kindly these days. I may have a pocket of technologically advanced descendants of the ancients living somewhere on the continent, though. I also do plan to incorporate giant lizards as riding mounts and, perhaps, flying dinosaurs.

 

[Yora]

Or the colonists aren't cut-off at all, but their homeland has been so thoroughly devastated by a magical cataclysm, war, or a legally-distinct tarrasque that there is no desire to return home.

So kind of Red Tide for Labyrinth Lord.

 

[jdrakeh]

So kind of Red Tide for Labyrinth Lord.

Such a conceit is also at the center of I Bury The Gods (a little indie RPG over at Exalted Funeral).

 

[Yora]

I think when starting with homebrew worldbuilding, the most important thing to decide on is what kind of gameplay and campaign structure you want to produce with the campaign.
It's not just that you need the kind of content that makes the kind of desired gameplay possible, but also makes it desirable and preferable for the players. And it can be a good choice to deliberately avoid creating content that could be "distractions" by inviting players to spend a lot of time doing things that don't contribute to the main concept.
Of course, when the players discover something about a setting that they really like and want to focus on, it's always a great option to shift the focus towards that. But that also means that much of the content prepared for the original goal becomes redundant. In a well designed setting, the parts that are meant to be the focus of the campaign should also be the most interesting and exciting parts of the world.

 

[jdrakeh]

I think when starting with homebrew worldbuilding, the most important thing to decide on is what kind of gameplay and campaign structure you want to produce with the campaign.
It's not just that you need the kind of content that makes the kind of desired gameplay possible, but also makes it desirable and preferable for the players. And it can be a good choice to deliberately avoid creating content that could be "distractions" by inviting players to spend a lot of time doing things that don't contribute to the main concept.
Of course, when the players discover something about a setting that they really like and want to focus on, it's always a great option to shift the focus towards that. But that also means that much of the content prepared for the original goal becomes redundant. In a well designed setting, the parts that are meant to be the focus of the campaign should also be the most interesting and exciting parts of the world.

This is probably going to be a West Marches-style campaign, so no pre-set narrative/plot structure to adhere to. Players get to decide what they want to do, then they do it. There will be hooks (i.e. missions) available, but players get to choose what they pick up and run with and what they ignore. The narrative is emergent through actual play. There will likely be one large colony/city and a few smaller, outlying, villages or towns. Most of the new continent is unexplored wilderness.

 

[Aldarc]

So kind of Red Tide for Labyrinth Lord.

I don't know. I'll take your word for it. I think that there is a similar conceit for Ironsworn.